


spreading wide my narrow hands

by lastwingedthing



Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 13:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21374959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: Reader, I buried him.
Relationships: Jane Eyre/Bertha Mason, past Jane Eyre/Edward Rochester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 128
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	spreading wide my narrow hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolf_of_Lilacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/gifts).

> See end notes for more details on the warnings.

Reader, I buried him.

By the time the news came to me, carried to Morton by chance alone, it lacked only a day until his funeral: I left Moor House in unseemly haste. Trunk half-packed – lessons abandoned – only poor garbled explanations for my saviours, the Rivers – I sat in the hired coach for hours, fists clenched in desperation.

Did I believe that if only I could reach Thornfield Hall before the funeral I would discover – what? That the story I had overheard of a rich man burnt alive by his mad wife would be proven untrue? That somehow he would yet be waiting for me in the grounds of his home, as he had done months before when I returned to him from Gateshead Hall?

It was all for naught. That beautiful house was nothing but a gutted ruin, a shattered remnant as lonely as crumbling furniture left to moulder in an attic long after those who once used it have passed into dust. And the man who owned the house, too, was –

Later I sat by the windows of an inn that bore his name and watched the funeral procession departing, the solemn tall-hatted men in their black cloaks, the polished wood of the casket developing a still-deeper sheen in the streaming rain. With his house burned to the ground there was no place closer or more fitting than this from which to send Mr Rochester to his final sleep – an indignity, but surely the final one, and then at last that troubled soul could rest.

Weeping women surrounded me: Leah, Mrs Fairfax, others who had been servants to the Rochesters. I knew my place. Upstairs in the finer parlour were many of the local gentry I remembered from Mr Rochester’s parties – so long ago, they seemed now! Poor Adele was still at her school a hundred miles to the south, and her Sophie sent away back to Paris. That warm intimate circle I had once enjoyed was passed away forever.

Once I might have shrank from the avid gazes surrounding me in this room, the whispered gossip from the rows of chairs behind me, but no more. Yes, I was _that _Jane Eyre – yes, the master had meant to wed me, until the secret of his wife was revealed _on our wedding day_ – yes, I was but a _governess_ – none of their words could move me. I sat in a tearless daze, watching the slow meandering trails the rain made as it slid down the glass.

I had taken rooms in a private house in Hay, as the inn had already been full of other guests when I arrived; in the evening Mr Rochester’s solicitor came to see me in my sitting room, bringing Mrs Fairfax with him.

“To be a friend to you in this awful time,” she said to me lowly, dabbing at her eyes. _She_, at least, had held herself aloof from the gossip.

I thought she meant merely the anguish we felt over the death of our friend and master. Then Mr Johnson told me all.

He was the executor of Mr Rochester’s will, he explained to me, and that will had recently been changed under Mr Rochester’s direction. The greatest part of the estate – the lands, and Thornfield Hall – would go to Mr Rochester’s heir, a distant cousin; but of the remainder, a large portion of Mr Rochester’s wealth was willed to – me.

Provided, the will stated clearly, I saw to the care and maintenance of Bertha Rochester for the remainder of her natural life.

I suppose I could have refused the money and the responsibility, both. I was no longer the friendless governess Mr Rochester had known: I had found a sympathetic circle of those who looked on me kindly, a position which, if not tolerable to endure for the rest of my life, would nevertheless support me until some more suitable place could be found.

But such a thought barely occurred to me. He would have known I would not refuse this duty – he knew me better than any other – he must have known I would not do it. It was a harsh fate, perhaps, but one I was fit to meet. And it offered me a life, a future, free from money cares or obligation or the need to marry.

Even now I do not know if he meant it as a punishment, in a fit of pique and cruelty at my desertion. Many of my acquaintance, as few as they are these days, certainly believe it to be so.

Yet I believe – I must believe – he acted at least in part from respect for my qualities, my ability for charity and my sense for what is right. And some concern for Mrs Rochester, too: he hated her, but he would not see her dead: would not see her sent to be locked away amidst the damps of Ferndean Manor: would run into a blazing fire to attempt her rescue…

He knew I would do my duty by her, and see that her life was preserved with as much kindliness as could be possible.

The weeks and months that followed were busy enough to keep me from complete prostration: I simply did not have the time to let myself truly consider the final, extinguishing blow that had fallen upon me.

Mr Rochester had left Ferndean Manor to me: but as the main residence of his estate was now a ruin, I agreed that the new master of the estate should have it as his primary residence, for it would be many years until Thornfield Hall could be rebuilt. Instead I had to find and furnish a suitable house for the two of us – arrange a place for Mrs Rochester to be kept in safety and tranquillity until her burns could heal and the new house should be prepared – settle all the details of the investments and properties left to me – seek a strong reliable servant to be my assistant, replacing Grace Poole who had been prostrated by shock and guilt after the fire. Even if Grace had wished to continue as Mrs Rochester’s attendant, I would not have had her – but as had often been said, she was not easy to replace.

Another shock awaited me, but my nerves were too dulled by what had come before to truly feel it. I had an uncle, who was now dead: I had a legacy of twenty thousand pounds, which I now had no need for: and I had cousins – three cousins – my saviours, the Rivers.

It was the one joy of those bitter months, to be able to divide my uncle’s inheritance among all four of his surviving kin, as should have been done from the beginning. Dear Mary and Diana could leave their unsuitable positions, and St John could come closer to the fulfilment of his most cherished hopes. I spent the happiest Christmas I had ever known among their company: though the sisters seemed aghast at the fate that awaited me, St John seemed to approve of my imminent self-sacrifice.

And then before I knew it I the fateful letter arrived: the house I had found in —shire, which needed but small modifications to make it suitable for my needs, was ready.

I sent word to those currently caring for Mrs Rochester, and prepared myself for this new and most ominous chapter of my life.

Mrs Rochester came to me on a clear cold winter’s day, with the frost still heavy and crackling on the ground. The coach was locked, and a stout attendant had travelled inside it with her.

“Good as gold, she were, miss,” Mrs Williams told me. “And very quiet. She likes to peep from the window. Let her look and all will be right.”

Later she took me aside, laying her broad hard hand on my elbow. “My man and me haven’t given her gin, nor laudanum either, or any of that kind. She came to us used to it: but I wouldn’t give her any more, miss, I wouldn’t. That strong stuff will seem like it keeps her quiet, but that’s only for a little span of time; then it gets on her brain and makes her wild. It’s bad for the brain, miss; that it is, for certain, and hers cannot stand the strain. My man took her for walks, and that does her better: she goes fast and far, and then she tires herself, and comes home meek as a lamb.”

It made sense: I approved of the policy: yet something in my heart sank at the thought that Grace Poole had been giving her patient gin and laudanum. Surely, not under Mr Rochester’s direction…!

I shook my head; it must not be so. I would find the truth in time.

Mrs Rochester came from the coach as quietly as promised, suffered herself to be led to the little neat bedroom that had been prepared for her, in an upstairs room with a broad barred window and a door that locked from the outside.

The little house I had found for us in the quiet, remote moor country – by chance, only twenty miles from that Lowood School where I had spent so much of my younger years – was bigger and more comfortable than my little cottage in Morton, though not by much. But the gardens at Yew House were extensive; overgrown and wild, they promised to become beautiful with only a little attention and care. For now I had taken only one servant, a good reliable young farm girl who was little-trained but quick to learn. I hoped in time, once we were settled in our ways, to take on a man to help me tend the gardens, but that was a luxury for future days. The two of us did well enough together; Rachel was a tall strong girl, used to rough work, who I thought could manage Mrs Rochester if it was needed.

Yet it was not needed. True to Mrs Williams’ word, Mrs Rochester was quiet – remained quiet – so long as she was allowed to remain in a place where she could see the world outside. I remembered that her room in Thornfield Hall had been dark and enclosed… windowless… But it was better not to think too long on that.

I found her much changed from what she had been in other ways. The heavy swollen colour was gone from her face; good food and exercise, and a cessation of the gin, had seen to that. She did not growl, or run about on all fours; neither did she speak, or attack me, or break out of her room to menace the household after dark. The burns that had kept her bedridden nearly two months were mostly healed, though they still showed pink on her left hand and her neck. Yet I still fancied I could see the low animal cunning shining through her dark eyes, at times, as she watched me.

And as for my heart – my feelings – how could I speak of them? Her actions had killed the man I loved: her very existence had shattered all my sweetest and brightest future hopes. Yet while her husband had hated her, I – I could not. She was mad, and she had been of low mean character before the madness; yet she had not chosen to become what she was.

And she did not hate me. She had hated her husband, loathed him – hated the brother who still thought on her kindly, and had done all he could to preserve her rights – yet me, the attempted usurper who was now her jailer – me, she looked on with no special emotion, except perhaps a kind of pity.

She moved through the endless repetitions of her days as if she was but dreaming, and if low meek me was a part of her dream – so be it! She did not seem to care.

As spring approached, our routines settled, and I could think at last of Adele. Mr Rochester had sent her to a school shortly after I left him; its reputation was good, but I did not trust that, and at last I set out to visit the place myself, and ensure that sweet charming Adele was not being mistreated in another Lowood.

I found her situation worse than I had feared. Her food and clothing were adequate – barely – to preserve life: it was her spirit that was most at risk of being crushed. Everything in that place was harsh rules and regimentation, even for pupils as young as Adele: nothing soft and delicate was allowed to endure: and Adele’s partial grasp of the English tongue was taken as wilful disobedience, not ignorance. Under my tuition her English had developed very well, at natural healthy pace – _I _did not expect her to achieve full fluency overnight – yet this seemed to be the least her teachers expected of her; since she failed to achieve this feat, they cast her out into the utmost degrees of wickedness and stupidity.

I had never planned to care for Adele myself – it would be madness, surely, to bring a child into the same house as a madwoman – yet I was _her _guardian, too, and I could not leave her at that school for a single hour longer, once I had found out its condition.

Mrs Rochester was calm and quiet, by all reports had shown no warning signs since her last great act of violence at Thornfield Hall. She did not even speak – surely she would do no harm to little Adele, in the month or three it would take to secure Adele a more suitable place?

Such, at least, were my hopes.

As we travelled back north Adele clung to me for hours, weeping bitterly from fear and relief into my shoulder: I held her and reassured her until she grew calm, and felt in my heart that I must have done right to save her from that place.

And indeed all was well. Mrs Rochester had behaved very nicely in my absence; Rachel or her younger brother took her for her walk each day; I returned to find the house neat and quiet and orderly, as I had left it.

As the days passed, the household became accustomed to our new arrangements. Mrs Rochester ignored Adele, as she ignored me, but Adele blossomed again under kind gentle treatment, allowed again to play with her doll and pick flowers in the overgrown gardens to weave into her lovely curls. She must have missed her maid, but poor Sophie would have long since found another position, and another French-speaking maid would not be easy to find in our county; between us Rachel and I managed her care well enough.

And then one day I returned from an errand in the village to hear music – singing – coming from our home. The first voice I knew at once – Adele’s sweet pure tones were familiar to me after so many months in her company – but she was singing in duet with another who I did not recognise. The language was clearly French; I did not understand who it could be.

Then I came inside and saw Mrs Rochester on the chair beside her, eyes closed and mouth open, singing. Her voice was deep and full, very deep for a woman, and not smooth; there was a husky rasp to it that spoke of long-seated damage and mistreatment. Yet it was still very rich, very full of colour and passion.

I meant to stop them, but their voices together were so beautiful: I could not bear to do it, until the song was done.

Adele saw me and at once broke into her usual demands for praise and petting – in French, of course – we had often spoken in that language before Mrs Rochester, but now for the first time I saw her eyes moving as she listened, and realised that she must understand it, perhaps better than I did myself.

I drew Adele away, and admonished her briefly, that Mrs Rochester’s company was not good for her to keep; I do not know if she understood me, but after her time in school she had grown obedient and fearful of my displeasure, and I knew she would not disobey.

That was the end of it, I thought; yet in the evening after Adele had gone to bed and I sat up reading by the fire, with Mrs Rochester looking out into the darkness from the window-seat behind me, I heard her speak to me for the first time.

“The child sings well; she has her father’s talent for it.” The voice was a little hoarse from disuse, but clear enough; the language was French, spoken with careless fluency.

I paused; I felt a shiver of fear running up my spine.

“He did not think that he was her father,” I answered her at last – thinking feebly perhaps to calm any sudden jealousy that might arise in her, who had been his lawful wife when Adele was made.

“Didn’t he?” she said, with a light laugh; a drawing-room laugh, not the animal noise I had heard from her before. “Did you believe him? You are very naïve.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “I would rather be that, than a cynic.”

She laughed again, and that was an end of it; yet from that day forward she began to speak to me occasionally, of little unimportant things mostly – but only to me. 

There was no overt danger from Mrs Rochester, as yet, but still the change in her disturbed me – that she spoke Adele’s native language more fluently than I did myself, most of all. Adele, naturally enough for a curious and intelligent child, asked her questions – who are you, where are you from, why did you come to live with my Mademoiselle – and I was afraid that some day Mrs Rochester might answer her too honestly.

Then, too, at times I heard Mrs Rochester singing in another tongue – one strange to me, though on occasion I thought I recognised a word or two of French among the verses.

When I questioned her, she answered me at once, and plainly: it was a slave jargon from Martinique, taught to her as a young child by her nursemaid, a slave her mother had brought with her from Saint-Pierre.

A slave, she told me flatly with cold dark eyes, who was her mother’s half-sister. Her aunt by blood – and the mother of her youngest brother; her father had forced himself upon his wife’s own sister, and bred a son he had sold away before the boy turned fourteen.

Her honesty shook me: though I had heard much of the cruelties and unnatural vices carried out by the slave-owners of the West Indies, though my sympathies were all for the abolitionist parties then advocating for the reform of that system, it was still shocking to hear a woman speak so bluntly of such matters. All my life I had raged against the custom and convention that demanded silence over open speech, the attitude that said it was worse to speak of evil than to suffer it. Yet I had never heard of cruelty to match that of Mrs Rochester's girlhood - cruelty she had been brought up to imitate, rather than to abhor - and I cannot lie; at first I shrank from it in horror and disgust. 

And I, I was no Adele. Even if the worst excesses of Mrs Rochester's madness had waned, I did not think such ruthless bluntness would be good for the child.

I doubled my efforts, and found a school fit for Adele’s care at last. I visited it myself, twice, before I was sure – interviewing the teachers, who seemed to have been chosen for their kindness and character first of all things; watching the little girls laugh and run together in the spacious schoolgrounds. This school, at least, recognised the importance of gentleness, and play; and it was near enough, that Adele could visit me often, and I could easily remove her from it if the need arose.

I had misgivings, still, but I made sure to visit her often, and had the reward of seeing her sweet happiness _grow_, not falter, under the influence of a broad circle of likeminded friends and loving teachers.

Once I could be sure she would be happy I was relieved, of course – but at the same time, I missed the child’s company.

That, at least, was my excuse.

I found myself taking over Rachel’s duties, to take Mrs Rochester on her long walks in the afternoons and evenings – I found myself in conversation with her, reading to her, in the long evenings by the fire. My French improved rapidly in comprehension and fluency; _her_ conversation was not that of a child, and where Adele’s conversation had been an easy pleasure, at times I needed all my powers to follow Mrs Rochester’s thought and make rational reply in a tongue that was not my own.

I was not as delicate as unmarried women are claimed to be. I had heard Mr Rochester speak of all the worst periods in his own life with equanimity: some of the matters Mrs Rochester spoke of were not easy for me to hear, but I was not prostrated by them.

She was mad, of course – she must be mad – but her conversation was not. Irregular, unconventional, sometimes very radical – but not mad.

We spoke of history, politics, philosophy, the great writers of England and France. Nothing closer to home than that: I did not dare it, and perhaps neither did she.

In the height of summer Diana and Mary came together to visit me – a great joy, and one I had looked forward to with the greatest anticipation for many weeks. It was not pure pleasure, however, for St John had sailed at last for India; it was likely that none of us would ever see him again.

Yet I hope that my company was still a comfort for the sisters, if a small and inadequate one when compared to the brother they had loved all their lives.

Still, we had great delight in speech together, in reading, in long walks through the beautiful moorland landscape so much like that which neighboured their sweet Moor House. They approved of the home I had made for myself: the comfortable little house I had chosen, its furnishings, its situation in a hollow in the hillside, sheltered from the strongest blasts of the wind yet open to sweeping prospects from the south.

I had feared, at first, how Mrs Rochester would behave before strangers; should the worst occur I resigned myself to keeping her barred in her chamber again, though I knew that step would likely do her great harm. She would ignore the strangers, perhaps. Or perhaps she would hate them, from jealousy over me – some small mean part of my brain whispered that thought, though I took pains to ignore it.

Or perhaps she would prefer them over me? I believe I feared that, too.

Yet in the end her manners were excellent, her conversation measured and intelligent, though she did not always choose to join our talk. She still refused to speak or respond to the English language, but Diana and Mary too were fluent in the French language, if perhaps not quite so practiced as I had become. Mrs Rochester’s reading was some fifteen years behind the times, save for those few volumes I had bought for our small library, yet her opinions were still well-formed and considered, if far more radical than was common in these days.

Before they left Diana took me aside. I had spoken fully to her and Mary of Mrs Rochester’s history; doubtless she had expected something very different from what she had found; yet still I was startled by her disbelief.

“She is not mad,” she told me plainly. I shook my head.

“Not now, perhaps,” I said at last. “But she _has _been mad, and her madness may return at any time.”

Diana shook her head, that time; she did not answer me, but I could see that she wished to.

I do not know how I would have answered her, if she had.

Autumn came – red leaves and rain flung to the ground together in sodden violence – after our afternoon walks in the moors Bertha and I came home splashed to the waists in mud. The frosts began and deepened, and the days grew short; we held a strange Christmas together in our neat little parlour. Before I knew it I had been a year since we had come to Yew House – then longer – and then spring came to us again.

The routine of our lives was firm and set: quiet and isolated, save only from the occasional visit from Adele or the Rivers sisters.

I was to spend all the years that stretched before me like this, in Bertha’s company, until she should depart from this life at last.

It was not a difficult life – in truth it was far easier than my first early imaginings had painted it. These days Bertha needed little special care. She and I helped Rachel to cook and keep the house; we read and sewed together; almost every day we went on great walks, twelve or fifteen miles at a time, for Bertha seemed to need to match herself constantly against some external force – a marsh, a steep hill, the freezing wind – to maintain her fragile sense of calm. She did not visit the village, though occasionally we would stop at a farmhouse for a rest or a drink of new milk; nor did she ever come with me to church.

Money was no concern, nor would ever be. I had time to read – to study German, and perfect my French – to draw, and paint, and improve my skills in both. Similarly Bertha often sang, alone, and she had begun to work in the gardens: the rough work suited her physical strength, her need for constant action. I no longer needed to fear her – though in truth I still could not always meet her dark gaze without a strange flutter in my chest.

I hoped that in a year or two I might find further scope for my resources and activity – begin a charity school for girls like the one I had briefly taught at in Morton, perhaps. It would be a great pleasure to find some deserving girl to serve as mistress, one to whom the position might be as great a salvation as my time in Morton had once been to me.

Was I content?

The word seemed quite wrong to describe my life. I was comfortable – I lived well, not merely endured – at times, perhaps, I was happy.

And I was lonely. I longed for deep true companionship, of the type I had once known with Helen Burns, with Miss Temple, with Diana and Mary Rivers – I longed for love –

As spring advanced Bertha spent more and more of her time in the gardens. She had some plan for them, but not one that it was easy for me to understand. She had the strength even to prune and cut back what was wildly overgrown, but she did not always do it; many plants she left in a confused tangle, and she made no attempt to restore the neat order that had clearly once existed among the garden beds and rows.

Yet as the bright flowers opened and leaves unfurled in tender shining shades of green, I found myself discovering a kind of beauty in what she had chosen to create.

I did not wish to see it – I was afraid, deep down, of growing to understand too much of Bertha’s thought – and yet I could not escape it. I thought her wild garden beautiful.

As the weather warmed the tasks she took on grew more difficult; at times she sweated and grew red-faced as she worked. I found her one humid afternoon struggling with the stumps of a box hedge she had decided to condemn, working with a hoe to uproot the plants like a common labourer.

I could see that she had sweated quite through her rough work-dress, and the sight of her with those great dark patches on her back and beneath her arms was somehow disturbing – and yet it compelled me, too; her strength so much like a man's, though a man she was not.

In my discomfort at her labour I interrupted her, to offer to arrange for Rachel’s brother to come to assist her. She merely smiled and refused me with nothing more than a terse shake of her head.

Then, looking at me more closely, she laid the hoe down and stood before me. She lifted her hands – big coarse hands like a man’s – she touched her own arm, showing its breadth to me.

“This body can work, it was made to work, but it has spent a decade in prison. Do not rob me of the chance to use it as it was meant.”

I shook my head, sparked suddenly into unreasonable fury by her words. “Can you call it prison, when you were protected, treated kindly? Spared the madhouse?”

Then I could have caught my rash words back, crammed them into my mouth and eaten them greedily down to hide them, but it was too late; I had shattered the peace between us as if it had been but fragile china, carelessly dropped.

Bertha’s eyes were flat and dark, but she did not lash out at me - at least not with hands or fists.

“Was I imprisoned because I was mad? Or was I mad because I was imprisoned?”

I shook my head again. “He was a good man,” I insisted. “He would not have done such a thing without good cause. I am glad you are well now, I am truly glad, but...”

She reached out and touched my mouth with her fingertips to silence me. At once I could taste mould, damp earth, the salt of her skin.

“He wed a dream,” she said at last, cold and hard. “He wished for a dream girl, a fairy with a golden hoard, but I am only a woman. I would not bend myself for him. I would not pretend that he could take my father’s money, live amongst us, and yet keep his hands clean. Our lives were muck and blood to the neck, and I would not pretend otherwise. In time he saw me as nothing more than a reflection of his own sins, and so he could not stand even to look at me. I had to be hidden from him, lest he remember what he himself had done.

“If I was proud and unyielding – then so was he. If I betrayed him – he betrayed me first, and more cruelly. _He _could take all the slave women he wished for, even those who were my own kin – my brother and my father taught him that – and yet for me to seek love beyond my husband, beyond my own race, that, _that _was the sin that could not be forgiven?”

Her chest was heaving with emotion, yet still her tone was not entirely beyond her control. I looked at her – feeling the impact of her words like narrow daggers in my chest. I felt nothing, as yet, but I knew that when I had the time and space for due reflection the knives would _twist_.

Yet I could not entirely accept her words without reply.

“You did not forgive his sins,” I said, my voice small and quiet. “You killed him.”

She looked away from me at last, but the absence of that dark gaze was not relief.

“Perhaps I did,” she said softly. “Perhaps I did. I meant to scare him – to destroy the cage he had built with _my _money, his pretty shining house of lies. I meant to kill myself too. It felt as if it would be freedom, to stand at the edge of the rooftop and fly, for a moment, before the fall. But then… he called to me, and it was as if I saw him again merely as a man, not the monster who frightened me. So I ran instead. I thought, perhaps he might catch me, but then perhaps I might escape, and run free on the hills once more… and he did chase me. But I was faster than him, and than the fire.”

Tears swelled and scorched in the corners of my eyes, but I yet retained enough control to keep them from falling.

“I cannot forgive you,” I said; the words burned me, but it felt something like relief to let them free.

To my shock she bent down and kissed my forehead.

“I would not ask you to, Jane,” she answered, almost gently.

I could not answer her; I fought back my tears and walked away.

And then one night I lay in bed awake for many hours, disturbed perhaps by the cold bright moonlight shining in thin bars around the edges of the curtain where I had not pulled it fully closed. All was silent, all was still; but suddenly I heard light footsteps on the boards outside my room.

It had been more than a year since Bertha had last been locked in her room at night – it was no longer necessary, and in all those months she had never abused the privilege – yet as soon as I heard that step outside I knew who it must be.

In a moment I was transported to my lovely governess’ room in Thornfield Hall – in a moment the shouting would begin, or the smoke –

My heart was pounding so loudly that for a moment I did not recognise the soft knock on the door as a noise external to myself.

Then I gathered my courage: I rose from my bed: I told myself that the Bertha I had known of old would not _knock_.

The Bertha waiting for me on the other side of the door was quiet and calm-faced, holding her candle carefully in both hands. Its unsteady light cast odd shadows on her face; her eyes were fixed on me, deep and strange.

“Jane,” she said, voice hushed and calm. “Jane, I am cold.”

I frowned. It was a warm summer evening outside: there had been no trace of chill for weeks.

She saw my frown and smiled at me.

“I’ve been cold ever since I was taken to England – but I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it anymore. Jane, may I stay with you tonight?”

I was sleepy and slow, and confused; my tongue deserted me. She had never yet turned her anger on me, yet still I feared it – feared her – since I did not dare deny her, I nodded my head.

She smiled again, slow and sleepy as my thoughts. She walked past me to my bed – she blew out the candle – she slid between the sheets I had left disturbed and curled herself up neatly on her side. Within a moment she seemed to have fallen fast asleep.

My thoughts were in a whirl: I did not understand what I had done, yet I felt it would be too cruel to cast her from my bed now – and how could I, when I was the one who had let her in?

At last I calmed myself and lay down beside her. She did not wake.

Hours later _I _woke, hot and heavy-limbed, to find myself on my back – a strange position, and one I never slept in. At first I was confused, and then I opened my eyes to find her crouched over me – pinning me down –

Her hair hung around us, a dark curtain, creating a private room for her and me alone.

She saw I was awake. I saw her eyes move and glitter in the darkness.

“Jane, sweet little Jane,” she said in English – the first time she had spoken that language to me. I was shaking, I think; I put my hands out to push her away; but beneath her nightgown she was all firm muscle, and I was weak.

I do not think I was surprised when she kissed me.

It was not a gentle kiss. Not the light easy kind that may be shared between friends. I turned my head away – she followed me with her mouth, and kissed me again. Her lips were soft, soft and warm and delicate, but I shuddered beneath her as if she’d used them to burn me. Then her hand found my waist – I could feel nothing but the heat of it, the pressure –

“I can’t,” I said helplessly. “I can’t!” Somehow I managed to break free.

I fled the room for the warm safety of the kitchen, but I could not escape the image of her – the memory of her eyes in the dark, and her touch - 

The next day it was as if nothing had happened between us. She was as remote and quiet as ever – I was the one who fumbled and dropped things, and could not help but stare at her from across the room. Rachel asked me if I was ill; she had been surprised to find me awake in the kitchen before her, more so when I told her that I could not sleep, for she knew that was never a malady I suffered from.

Still, neither of them said anything. I found my way to the garden and sat in the cool shade of the yew walk to calm my thoughts.

Bertha found me there, of course. Beneath the trees she came to me tall and stately, her long hair free to blow and tangle in the breeze. She did not look now the great society lady she must have once been, but rather something from an ancient tale – a fairy queen, perhaps, a Titania, inexorable and elemental and wild.

But in truth she was no more than a woman. I knew that, though the knowledge did not help to calm me.

She said nothing to me, at first. But when I looked away and avoided her eye she came and crouched before my seat, taking my hands in hers. I did not immediately draw them away.

“Why, you will not even look at me, my poor Jane. Did I scare you so?” She laughed, then, rich and low. “I did not mean it, I only wish to keep you from your loneliness. You were never a wife, you will never be a wife – perhaps that is my fault, but I am glad, glad I kept you from it!”

Involuntarily I looked at her; I do not know what emotion was showing on my face. Thoughts and feelings churned within me, wildly – I did not dare speak, but I believe my face showed it anyway.

She laughed at me, and quickly kissed the hands she still held before her – at _that_ I drew them away.

“Little Jane,” she said, caressingly. “Perhaps I owe you a debt for what I took, all the same. Shall I pay it?”

I still did not look at her, but I swear I could feel her eyes on me like brands, her dark voice like a caress.

“Wives are property, are they not? My husband left me to you – am I not your wife, then? Will you let me be your wife in true?”

A jolt like lightning passed through me, and then a sudden heat, scorching me as I think a tropical sun might have done.

Numbly I shook my head, and again Bertha laughed.

“Then if that will not do – you are owed a wedding, are you not? You wished to be a wife? I would have you as my own, and so gladly!”

The world, which I had thought so calm and steady, rocked on its foundations: she shook me, her words shook me, such that I thought that I might fall. But she held me up in her hot strong hands; she held me to her; and this time I could not – did not – resist.

Beneath the sun and the open sky she kissed me – and, my dear Reader, I cannot lie to you – this time I let her do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings note: the major character death tag refers only to Mr Rochester. 
> 
> There are also some references to slavery and associated trauma, including sexual assault.


End file.
